Injury Updates: Mkhitaryan, Spinazzola, Kalinic Return, Florenzi in Doubt

For the Americans among us, we're heading into the holiday season, a time of alternating stress and relaxation. With Thanksgiving tantalizingly close, and with visions of indulgence only an American could achieve dancing through our heads, we tend to forget that, for the rest of the world, it's business as usual. For the employees of A.S. Roma, that means two football matches in four days: Thursday's Europa League roadshow in Istanbul and Sunday's Serie A jaunt to Verona.

If you've been with us for most of the season, you're well aware of how familiar Roma has become with the injury table. Between Edin Dzeko's broken face, Nikola Kalinic's broken leg, Lorenzo Pellegrini’s broken foot and Henrikh Mkhitaryan's torn leg muscles, seldom a week has gone by where Roma didn't lose someone to injury. Hell, even the wolf mascot probably caught strep throat from all those kids clawing at him/her every match.

But there is good news on the horizon.

With two fixtures on the docket, Mkhitaryan, Kalinic and Spinazzola each resumed full or close to full training this week. And while Kalinic is not likely to be called up for Thursday's trip to Istanbul. Spinazzola and Mkhitaryan should join the recently returned Lorenzo Pellegrini and Cengiz Ünder on this week's squad lists.

Of course, it just wouldn't be Roma if these updates weren't immediately soured by some bad news. After making his first start in more than a month last week, Alessandro Florenzi is now considered day-to-day with a right thigh flexor strain, though he did make a club appearance on Monday at a local hospital, so perhaps it's not as serious as it first seemed.

Roma have six matches in all competitions between now and December 20th, including domestic fixtures against Inter Milan and Fiorentina, as well as their final Europa League group stage fixture against Wolfsberger.

The Giallorossi have gone nearly the entire season without their full complement of players, but heading into the holiday season, a fully fit and healthy squad would be the best gift Paulo Fonseca could receive.